In their youth, many people read historical and adventure novels. Particularly attractive were stories about the noble knights of Europe, their ladies, equestrian tournaments, where the winner received not only the favor of the reigning monarch, but also the love of his chosen one. But there were still numerous battles with enemies, including for the desecrated honor of ancestors, the restoration of justice, the return of family castles and estates - you can’t count everything. Alas, this is only a very refined, almost perfect distortion of reality, which, unfortunately, is famous not only fiction. In fact, the same White and Scarlet Roses in England are a typical civil strife, and during it there were big problems with nobility, especially higher goals. But first things first.

No, this is not about the Civil War in Russia, where there were completely different heroes on both sides, but about the confrontation between the Scarlet and White Roses in medieval England:

To this widespread, beautiful legend with symbols romanticizing fratricidal confrontation, fragrant, in fact, not with roses, but with horse sweat, manure, the human aroma of unwashed medieval fighters, blood and many other extremely unpleasant odors war, both historians and writers and poets, grateful to them for the magnificent plot for numerous plays, novels, poems, songs, had a hand. Among them, which do not need any special introduction:

• William Shakespeare as the author of the plays Henry VI and Richard III.
• Robert Louis Stevenson with the exciting adventure novel “Black Arrow”, which literally all the youth of the Land of the Soviets read.

In the deservedly popular television series “Game of Thrones” based on the books by George R.R. Martin included in the epic “A Song of Ice and Fire”, he brought out the medieval earthly Lancasters as representatives of the fictional Lannister dynasty, and instead of the Yorks, the Starks appear there. If we take into account that for quite a long time England was ruled a little later by the Stuarts, who were very consonant with them, then the intrigue is not yet over, and, as usual, a continuation will follow.

A curious twist in history is that the results of this war did not bring victory to any of the Plantagenets - neither the Yorks nor the Lancasters:

• Over the course of 30 years of battles and subsequent periods of accumulation of forces, funds, attracting allies among the royal houses of Europe, hiring professional fighters there, victory alternately went to both sides of the conflict, for which they paid with thousands of corpses of titled nobility of various denominations.
• The end to this civil war, which exhausted England and destroyed the flower of the noble class - the basis of autocratic power, was put by King Henry VII, who founded a new dynasty of rulers - the Tudors, who occupied the throne for more than a century, until 1603.
• Indirectly, however, it is possible with a large degree of assumption to give the technical victory “on points” to the Lancasters, since Henry VII Tudor was their relative on the female side.

He made a beautiful gesture by combining both symbols, the Scarlet and White Rose, into one - the Tudor Rose, which began not only to personify their dynasty in heraldic science, but also to this day the whole of England, because depicted on the royal coat of arms.

In this case, the Wars of the Roses. It must be said that in England, later in its successor - Great Britain, patriarchy, common in most countries under the leadership of monarchs, was not so magnificently manifested. Thus, in the history of England there are much more queens than in other European countries, and extraordinary personalities who left a noticeable mark on world history, both glorifying their country and drenching it in the blood of their compatriots. One of them was Queen Margaret of Anjou (1430–1482), wife of Henry VI, who actively participated in the Wars of the Roses:

The final results of her activities were sad: she lost her only son Edward, her husband died or was killed in 1471 as a prisoner of the Tower of London, and she herself was captured by the Yorks. The French king Louis XI saved her from death by buying her from them.

The War of the White and Scarlet Roses in England put an end to feudal anarchy. The Tudors, who came to power, established their absolute power, and the time of their reign was later called the period of the Renaissance of the country.

Reason for starting the war

1454 The King of England is Henry VI. He is not mentally healthy, so his ability to rule is in doubt. At court, the struggle for real power in the country begins.
Duke of York Richard seeks the position of regent for the king who is unable to rule. This is a thoughtful move, since the Duke is a descendant of King Edward III, and therefore has the right to lay claim to the throne in the future.
The wife of the weak-minded monarch, Margaret of Anjou, used her influence and managed to remove the ambitious vassal from a promising position.
Richard responded to the court intrigue with force. Thus began the war.

Progress of the War of the Roses

Richard York united his supporters and in 1455 opposed the king's army. Opponents met at St. Albans. The fight ended in victory for the Duke. He is again a regent, but now also the official heir of the insane king.
This is the beginning of the feudal war, later called the War of the Roses.
The country was divided into two camps: supporters of Richard York ( White Rose) and those who supported the rightful king from the Lancastrian dynasty (scarlet rose). Richard's powerful ally was the Earl of Warwick - he was called the kingmaker. The French monarch provided support to the king, and in fact to Queen Margaret.
After a short truce established as a result of negotiations in 1458, both sides returned to the use of force to resolve differences.
July 1460 – The Earl of Warwick took London and then captured Henry VI.
December 1460 - Richard of York was defeated at Wakefield and killed. But it is too early to sum up the results of the war - it did not end there: the deceased contender for the throne from the White Rose camp had sons who also aspired to supreme power.
1461, February - Richard's eldest son Edward defeats the supporters of the current king at Mortimer's Cross.
February 17 - the forces of the Scarlet Rose freed the king, but London did not open the gates to its ruler.
March 29 - the son of the fallen Duke of York, Edward, again defeats the troops of Henry VI, now at Towton, and proclaims himself king - Edward IV.
Margaret and Henry flee north, but in 1464 they are overtaken by the York troops. Henry is captured again, Margarita finds protection with her patron in France.
Edward did not want to share the captured power with anyone, which greatly upset the kingmaker Earl of Warwick. Now the White Rose camp has split.
1468 - Warwick Neville defeats the troops of the new king, and Edward himself is captured. Having kept him in captivity for prevention, Edward IV was again placed on the throne. It's still needed.
1470 - Warwick changes his mind again. From now on he is on the side of the feudal lords of the Scarlet Rose. The Count releases Henry VI from prison and gives him the crown. And Edward is forced to leave England.
But not for long. The following year he returns, gathers allies and defeats the kingmaker's troops. Warwick himself met death on the battlefield. Presumably, in a duel with Edward's younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester (he would later become Richard III). Henry was again captured by the victors, but he never left the Tower alive. The Yorks celebrate their victory over the Scarlet Rose camp. This was the intermediate result of the war. The subsequent years 1471-1485 can be characterized as a lull in the confrontation between the Scarlet and White Roses.
1483 - Edward IV dies. His 12-year-old son was placed on the throne under the royal name Edward V. The real power at court was held by the brother of the deceased ruler, Richard of Gloucester. First he becomes regent for the boy king. And then he declares the crowned nephew a bastard. On this basis, Edward V and his brother are locked in the Tower. The boys there soon die. Richard simply could not allow England to be left without a ruler. So he crowned himself and went down in history as Richard III.
During a fairly short period of reign, the newly-minted monarch managed to turn everyone against himself, even representatives of the White Rose camp (the relatives of Edward IV did not forgive him for the death of their children).
The logical result was the resumption of the war. Only now the forces of the Scarlet and White Rose have united to overthrow the usurper. The general army was led by Henry Tudor, who was related to the Lancastrians (scarlet).
1485, August 22 - the warring parties met in a duel at Bosworth. The result of the battle was the defeat of the army of Richard III from the army under the command of Tudor.
The symbolic end of the war was the wedding: the winner (scarlet) married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth (white). The Tudor dynastic coat of arms depicts the union of two flowers that competed for 30 years for England.

Results of the War of the Scarlet and White Roses

The war wiped out the flower of the English aristocracy. The willfulness of the feudal lords brought devastation to the country: executions, robberies, tax extortions. After all these horrors, the need for a strong central government was beyond doubt. The weakened aristocracy surrendered its position to the new nobility (entrepreneurs) and merchants. It was these strata of society that accelerated the establishment of absolutism and became the support of the Tudor dynasty.

History report

on the topic of:

"War of the White and Scarlet Roses."

Completed the job:

Student of 6th grade "B"

GBOU "School No. 883"

Moscow North-Western Administrative District

Latyntsev Mikhail

2017-11-25

22,312

The Wars of Roses

WAR OF THE SCARLET AND WHITE ROSE.

THE WAR OF THE ROSE (The Wars of Roses) (1455-85), bloody internecine conflicts between feudal cliques in England, which took the form of a struggle for the throne between two lines of the Plantagenet royal dynasty: the Lancasters (in the coat of arms there is a scarlet rose) and the Yorks (in the coat of arms White Rose).

Causes:

The causes of the war were heavy economic situation England (the crisis of the large patrimonial economy and the fall in its profitability); the defeat of England in the Hundred Years' War (1453), which deprived the feudal lords of the opportunity to plunder the lands of France; the suppression of Jack Cad's rebellion in 1451 (see Cad Jack's rebellion) and with it the forces opposed to feudal anarchy. The Lancasters relied mainly on the barons of the backward north, Wales and Ireland, the Yorks - on the feudal lords of the economically more developed southeast of England. The middle nobility, merchants and wealthy townspeople, interested in the free development of trade and crafts, the elimination of feudal anarchy and the establishment of firm power, supported the Yorks.

Progress of the war:

The rivalry between the two dynasties in England resulted in a civil war that began in 1455. Since the last months of the Hundred Years' War, two branches of the Plantagenet family - York and Lancaster - have been fighting for the throne of England. The War of the Roses (York's coat of arms had a white rose, and Lancaster's had a scarlet one) put an end to the reign of the Plantagenets.
1450
England was going through difficult times. King Henry VI of Lancaster was unable to calm down the disagreements and strife between the major aristocratic families. Henry VI grew up weak-willed and sickly. Under him and his wife Margaret of Anjou, the Dukes of Somerset and Suffolk were given unlimited power.
In the spring of 1450, the loss of Normandy signaled collapse. Internecine wars are multiplying. The state is collapsing. The conviction and subsequent murder of Suffolk does not lead to peace. Jack Cad rebels in Kent and marches on London. Royal troops defeat Cad, but the anarchy continues.
The king's brother Richard, Duke of York, who was in exile in Ireland at that time, gradually strengthened his position. Returning in September 1450, he tries, with the help of Parliament, to reform the government and eliminate Somerset. In response, Henry VI dissolved Parliament. In 1453, the king lost his mind as a result of severe fright. Taking advantage of this, Richard York achieved the most important position - protector of the state. But Henry VI regained his sanity, and the Duke's position began to shake. Not wanting to give up power, Richard York gathers armed detachments of his followers.
Lancasters vs Yorks
York enters into an alliance with the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, who are armed with a strong army, which in May 1455 defeats the royal troops in the town of St. Albans. But the king again takes the initiative into his own hands for a while. He confiscates the property of York and his supporters.
York abandons the army and flees to Ireland. In October 1459, his son Edward occupied Calais, from where the Lancasters unsuccessfully tried to dislodge them. There he collects new army. In July 1460, the Lancastrians were defeated at Northampton. The king is in prison, and Parliament names York heir.
At this time, Margaret of Anjou, determined to defend the rights of her son, gathers her loyal subjects in the north of England. Taken by surprise by the royal army near Wakefield, York and Salisbury are killed. The Lancastrian army moves south, devastating everything in its path. Edward, the son of the Duke of York, and the Earl of Warwick, having learned about the tragedy, hastened to London, whose inhabitants joyfully greeted their army. They defeated the Lancastrians at Towton, after which Edward was crowned Edward IV.
Continuation of the war
Taking refuge in Scotland and supported by France, Henry VI still had supporters in the north of England, but they were defeated in 1464 and the king was imprisoned again in 1465. It seems that everything is over. However, Edward IV faces the same situation as Henry VI.
The Neville clan, led by the Earl of Warwick, who placed Edward on the throne, is starting a fight with Queen Elizabeth's clan. The king's brother, Duke of Clarence, is jealous of his power. Warwick and Clarence mutiny. They defeat the troops of Edward IV, and he himself is captured. But, flattered by various promises, Warwick releases the prisoner. The king does not keep his promises, and the struggle between them flares up with renewed vigor. In March 1470, Warwick and Clarence find refuge with the King of France. Louis XI, being a subtle diplomat, reconciles them with Margaret of Anjou and the House of Lancaster.
He did this so well that in September 1470, Warwick, supported by Louis XI, returned to England as a supporter of the Lancastrians. King Edward IV flees to Holland to join his son-in-law Charles the Bold. At the same time, Warwick, nicknamed the “kingmaker,” and Clarence restore Henry VI to the throne. However, in March 1471, Edward returned with an army financed by Charles the Bold. At Barnet, he wins a decisive victory - thanks to Clarence, who betrayed Warwick. Warwick is killed. The Lancastrian Southern Army is defeated at Tewkesbury. In 1471 Henry VI died (or possibly was assassinated), Edward IV returned to London.
Union of two roses
Problems arise again after the king's death in 1483. Edward's brother, Richard of Gloucester, who hates the queen and her supporters, orders the murder of the king's children in the Tower of London, and seizes the crown under the name of Richard III. This act makes him so unpopular that the Lancasters regain hope. Their distant relative was Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, son of the last of the Lancastrians and Edmond Tudor, whose father was a Welsh captain, bodyguard of Catherine of Valois (widow of Henry V), whom he married. This secret marriage explains the interference in the discord of the Welsh dynasty.
Richmond, along with the supporters of Margaret of Anjou, weaves a web of conspiracy and lands in Wales in August 1485. The decisive battle took place on August 22 at Bosworth. Betrayed by many of his circle, Richard III was assassinated. Richard ascends the throne as Henry VII, then marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. The Lancasters become related to the Yorks, the War of the Roses ends, and the king builds his power on the union of the two branches. He introduces a system of strict control of the aristocracy. After the accession of the Tudor dynasty it is written new page in the history of England.

Consequences:

The War of the Scarlet and White Roses was the last rampant of feudal anarchy before the establishment of absolutism in England. It was carried out with terrible cruelty and was accompanied by numerous murders and executions. Both dynasties were exhausted and died in the struggle. For the population of England, the war brought strife, oppression of taxes, theft of the treasury, the lawlessness of large feudal lords, a decline in trade, outright robberies and requisitions. During the wars, a significant part of the feudal aristocracy was exterminated, and numerous confiscations of land holdings undermined its power. At the same time, land holdings increased and the influence of the new nobility and merchant class, which became the support of Tudor absolutism, increased.

Dynastic feuds

The exact date of the beginning of the War of the Roses cannot be determined: disputes have been going on for 5 centuries. The immediate cause of the conflict was a dynastic crisis - a consequence of the over-fertility of King Edward III (1327-1377). The struggle for the throne between the heirs of his two sons - John of Gaunt and Edmund of York - resulted in almost half a century of armed struggle between the two most powerful and richest feudal houses in England. But by the end of the 15th century, they almost completely exterminated each other: the Lancastrian male line was extinguished back in 1471 after the death of Prince Edward, the son of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, and the last York, Richard III, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Elizabeth of York and Henry VII Tudor

The result of long-term infighting among court factions was the accession of the new Tudor dynasty, the founder of which was Henry VII. He was a distant relative of the Lancasters and, in order to legalize his rights to the throne, he married the last surviving representative of the Yorks - the daughter of Edward IV, Elizabeth.

The coat of arms of two roses appeared at the wedding of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York

It was at the royal wedding that the famous emblem of two connected roses - Scarlet and White - first appears. Before this, no one had even thought about the famous metaphor, which would later find its place on the pages of the works of Shakespeare and Walter Scott.

"Wars of the Nobles"

The influence of the Wars of the Roses on the history of England is enormous: this series of conflicts led to the accession of a new dynasty and the establishment of absolutism. Still, calling it a full-scale civil war would be wrong. For this era, the term “non-peace” (an archaism meaning non-peaceful or war time. — Explanatory Dictionary of V. I. Dahl).

The War of the Roses is a classic example of a made-up war.

The struggle of the court parties for the English crown could not but affect life in the provinces. Minor nobles were forced to go to war in order not to lose the favor of their patron lord. The gentry themselves (as the “new nobility” of England of that era was called) did not have any preferences in the ruling dynasties. A peaceful situation and stability were much more important to them than maintaining the line of succession to the throne. During the political struggle in the center, local unrest also occurred, but it rarely came to the murder of nobles; usually the warring parties limited themselves to cattle theft, intimidation, and, in extreme cases, the murder of servants.

The number of fallen nobles in the battles of the court parties itself is relatively small. The fact that the gentry fought not for their convictions, but for the protection of the Lord Protector, proves that there was no bloody civil war in the consciousness of contemporaries it was not and could not be. For people far from the court, it was a series of protracted conflicts in high circles.

There were only a few appearances of the third estate in wars, the most famous being Jack Ked's rebellion in 1450. However, many contemporaries call this movement “predatory”: the rebels did not pursue any noble goals other than robbery.

Three centuries of mythologization

The creation of the myth of the War of the Roses began during the rebellion of Richard York in 1452. The Duke actively took advantage of the propaganda achievements of that era. In his calls for rebellion, he began to emphasize the illegality of Henry VI's acquisition of power - after all, the king's grandfather had gained the throne by overthrowing his uncle, Richard II, back in 1399.

Richard III Plantagenet

This version of the myth quickly gained popularity among English aristocrats who were dissatisfied with the rule of Henry and the omnipotence of the Lancastrian party led by Queen Margaret, whom her opponents nicknamed the “Queen of Thorns.”

Richard III and Henry VII. Engraving by William Faithhorne, 1640. Richard III is shown as an old man with a symbolically broken scepter

The second version of the myth was created at the end of the dynastic war, immediately after the marriage of Henry VII Tudor to the heiress of York. It was at this time that the image of Richard III began to be demonized: he became a bloodthirsty tyrant, a child and fratricide killer. The remaining participants in the conflict appeared in neutral tones. In this myth, the emphasis was not on criticism of the Lancastrians, whose distant ancestor was Henry, but on harsh accusations against the previous ruler.

The spread of this version among the people was facilitated by the inconsistency that shrouded Richard's ascension to the throne: after the death of Edward IV, his elder brother, he became regent for the king's young children - Princes Edward and Richard. However, within six months, Richard Gloucester declared the boys bastards and himself the legal heir. Having received the consent of parliament, he was crowned in July 1483. The fate of Edward’s sons remained unknown: according to one version, the “princes from the Tower” were killed by their own uncle, according to another, they managed to escape to France. The first version turned out to be much more attractive to the Tudor propaganda machine.

Richard III suffered from scoliosis, but was not hunchbacked

Soon after consolidating his power, Henry VII began to forget that he owed half of the crown to his wife. A third revision of history began, in which it was customary to criticize the Yorks and glorify the Lancasters, and also to present the era not as a series of conflicts between court parties, but as a continuous war, from which the young Tudor acted as a deliverer.

The fourth stage of myth transformation was under Henry VIII. It had the blood of two dynasties flowing in it, so there was no need to criticize one of them. The king's ancestors, both Lancastrians and Yorks (except Richard III), were now victims of circumstance. All the blame for the outbreak of the civil war was placed on the foreigner Margaret of Anjou. And the image of the last of the York dynasty in the work of the famous humanist Thomas More “The History of Richard III” acquired new features: the author attributes the famous hump and withered left hand to the unfortunate king.

Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England

During the reign of Elizabeth, the myth was revised for the fifth time. The goal of Tudor propaganda was to establish the idyll of the Elizabethan era against the backdrop of the terrible and dark times of feudal strife. This is where Shakespeare's famous Chronicles appear. The great playwright is responsible for the famous scene where, in the garden of the Tower, Lancasters and Yorks pin red and white roses on themselves as a sign of irreconcilable struggle to the bitter end. It was Shakespeare who created the image of a dark and bloodthirsty era of continuous fratricidal wars, attracting with its tragedy and heroism.

The term "War of the Roses" was coined by Walter Scott.

The stereotypes created by Shakespeare cemented the image of a large-scale bloody war in the minds of the British for two centuries. Finally, in the 18th century, Walter Scott proposed the term “War of the Scarlet and White Roses,” which seemed so successful to contemporaries that it is still used in science.

The debunking of the Tudor myth began only in the 20th century. The process of wholesale rehabilitation of the heroes of history has begun. It went to extremes: numerous societies of Richard III were created, whose members are convinced that England did not have a better king. The events of the Wars of the Roses are still being studied today, but many questions remain unanswered.

The long and bloody feud between the two noblest English families, which went down in history as the “War of the Roses,” brought a new royal dynasty to the throne - the Tudors. The war owes its romantic name to the fact that not the coat of arms of one of the rival parties - the Yorks - featured a white rose, but the coat of arms of their opponents - the Lancasters - a scarlet one.

In the middle of the 15th century. England has fallen on hard times. Having been defeated in the Hundred Years' War, the English nobility, deprived of the opportunity to periodically plunder French lands, plunged into a showdown of internal relations. King Henry VI Lancaster was unable to stop the feuds of the aristocracy. Sick (Henry suffered from bouts of madness) and weak-willed, he almost completely handed over the reins of power to the Dukes of Somerset and Suffolk. The signal that foreshadowed the approach of serious unrest was Jack Cad's rebellion, which broke out in Kent in 1451. The royal troops, however, managed to defeat the rebels, but anarchy in the country was growing.

White starts, but doesn't win.

Richard, Duke of York, decided to take advantage of the situation. In 1451, he tried to increase his influence by opposing the king's all-powerful favorite, the Duke of Somerset. Members of parliament who supported Richard York even dared to proclaim him heir to the throne. However, Henry VI unexpectedly showed firmness and dissolved the rebellious parliament.

In 1453, Henry VI lost his mind as a result of a strong shock. This is the opportunity for Richard to achieve the most important position - protector of the state. But the Disease receded, and the king again ousted his ambitious brother. Not wanting to give up his dreams of the throne, Richard began to gather supporters for a decisive battle. Having concluded an alliance with the Earl of Salisbury and Warwick, who had strong armies, he moved against the king in the spring of 1455. The war of the two roses has begun.

The first battle took place in the small town of St. Albans. Earl Warwick and his detachment entered through the gardens from the rear and struck the royal troops. This decided the outcome of the battle. Many of the king's supporters, including Sommerset, died, and Henry VI himself was captured.

However, Richard's triumph did not last long. Queen Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, who stood at the head of the supporters of the Scarlet Rose, managed to remove York from power. Richard again rebelled and defeated the Lancastrians at the battles of Blore Heath (September 23, 1459) and Northampton (July 10, 1460), and in the latter battle King Henry was again captured. But Margaret of Anjou, who remained free, unexpectedly attacked Richard and defeated his troops at the Battle of Wakefill (December 30, 1460). Richard himself fell on the battlefield, and his head, wearing a paper crown, was displayed for all to see on the wall of York.

White wins, but not for long.

However, the war was still far from over. Having learned about the death of his father, Richard's son Edward, Earl of March, forms a new army in the Welsh possessions of York. Forces are gathering in the Wigmore and Ledlo area. On February 3, 1461, the two armies met in a decisive battle at Mortimer's Cross (Herefordshire). The supporters of the White Rose won an undoubted victory. The Lancastrians left the battlefield with 3,000 casualties.

Meanwhile, Queen Margaret of Anjou with Henry VI's only heir, Prince Edward, and a huge army hurried to the rescue of her husband. Having unexpectedly attacked the enemy, in February of the same year she defeated the White Rose supporter Earl of Warwick in St. Albans and freed her husband.

Inspired by the victory, Margarita decides to unite with the army of Jasper Tudor and march on London. And the Earl of March and Warwick head towards the Allied camp in the Cotswolds. Only by a miracle did the Scarlet and White manage to avoid a meeting, which would have been extremely undesirable primarily for the Yorks. Entering London, the queen's army began to loot and terrorize the townspeople. Eventually, riots began in the city, and when March and Warwick approached the capital, Londoners joyfully opened the gates to them. On 4 March 1461, Edward March was proclaimed King Edward IV, and on 29 March he dealt a crushing blow to the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton. The deposed king and his wife are forced to flee to Scotland.

Backed by France, Henry VI still had supporters in the north of England, but they were defeated in 1464 and the king was imprisoned again.

White WINS.

At this moment, strife begins in the White Rose camp. The Earl of Warwick, who leads the Neville clan, teams up with Edward's brother Duke of Clarence and raises a rebellion against the newly enthroned king. They defeat the troops of Edward IV, and he himself is captured. But, flattered by tempting promises, Warwick releases the king. Edward does not keep his promises, and enmity between former like-minded people flares up with renewed vigor. July 26, 1469, at Edgecote, Warwick defeats royal army, commanded by the Earl of Pembroke, and executes the latter along with his brother Sir Richard Herbert. Now Warwick, through the mediation of King Louis XI of France, goes over to the side of the Lancastrians, but just a year later he is defeated and dies at the Battle of Barnet.

Margaret of Anjou returns home from France just on the day of defeat. The news from London shocked the queen, but her determination did not leave her. Having gathered an army, Margaret leads it to the Welsh border to join the army of Jasper Tudor. But Edward IV overtakes the Scarlets and defeats them in the battle of Tewksbury. Margarita is captured; the only heir, Henry VI, fell on the battlefield; the latter died (or was killed) in captivity that same year. Edward IV RETURNED TO LONDON, AND THE COUNTRY WAS RELATIVELY CALM UNTIL HIS DEATH IN 1483.

White and scarlet roses on one coat of arms

A new drama unfolds with the death of the king. Edward's brother, Richard Gloucester, joins the struggle for power. According to the law, the throne had to pass to the son of the deceased monarch - the young Edward V. Lord Rivers, the queen's brother, sought to speed up the coronation. However, Richard managed to intercept Rivers with the young heir and his younger brother on the way to London. Rivers was beheaded and the princes were taken to the Tower. Later, the uncle apparently ordered the murder of his nephews. He himself takes possession of the crown under the name of Richard III. This act makes him so unpopular that the Lancasters regain hope. Together with the offended Yorks, they unite around Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, a distant relative of the Lancastrians who lived in France.

In August 1485, Henry Tudor landed at Milford Haven, passed through Wales unmolested and joined forces with his followers. Richard III was defeated by their united army at the Battle of Bosworth on August 22, 1485. The usurper king was killed in this battle. Henry VII, the founder of the Tudor dynasty, ascended the English throne. Having married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth, the heiress of York, he combined scarlet and white roses in his coat of arms.

Source – Large illustrated encyclopedia